U.S. court tosses Palestinian complaint against charities that support West Bank settlers

April 24, 2015 4:17pm
NEW YORK (JTA) — The U.S. Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s dismissal of an appeal from a group of 13 Palestinians that sought damages for alleged “terrorist attacks” by Jews in the West Bank.
The complaint was filed against five U.S.-based charities that financially support settlement activity: Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, the Hebron Fund, Central Fund of Israel, One Israel Fund and American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. The plaintiffs alleged that financial support of these charities violated antiterrorism laws.
“American federal judges recognize the difference between the financing of murder and violence… and legitimate bona fide financial support of the daily needs of peaceful Israeli settlements over the Green Line,” attorney Nathan Lewin, who represented the charities in the trial and appellate courts, said in a news release sent Friday.
The Palestinian plaintiffs argued that the settlements “in and of themselves…are a violation of the law of nations,” Lewin said.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Key congressional committees approve anti-BDS amendments

April 24, 2015 4:16pm
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Key congressional committees approved amendments to a major trade act that would require U.S. negotiators to discourage trading partners from boycotting Israel or Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The amendments, authored by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) were unanimously approved Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee and Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee.
They were attached to this year’s Trade Promotion Authority bill, which helps to shape objectives in trade pact talks between the United States and other countries. The so-called BDS movement supports boycotts, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel.
Specifying the ongoing Transatlantic and Trade and Investment Partnership talks with European nations, the amendment describes as a “principle negotiating objective” to “discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel” and to seek the removal of existing barriers to trade with Israel.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Biden: No deal with Iran unless breakout increases to a year

April 24, 2015 7:04am
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama would reject any Iran deal that does not increase its breakout time to a nuclear weapon to a year, Vice President Joe Biden told Israelis.
Biden, addressing the Israeli embassy’s Independence Day festivities, also said the United States will deliver F-35 fighter jets to Israel next year to help maintain its military edge regionally.
Biden said Obama’s minimum requirement for a deal between the major powers and Iran would be to increase Iran’s breakout time from the current 2-3 months where the United States estimates it currently stands to a year.
“If it doesn’t, no deal,” Biden said. A final deal is due June 30. Biden said it would include verifiable reductions of Iran’s stock of enriched uranium and guarantees that Iran could not manufacture plutonium.Click here for the full storyFrom PressTV

Israeli troops kill Palestinian teenager in East al-Quds

A Palestinian teenager has been shot dead by Israeli border guards at a checkpoint in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
Israeli security forces killed the 16-year-old Palestinian boy on Friday night while he was walking towards the al-Zaim checkpoint with his family, claiming that he intended to stab an Israeli officer.
“The soldiers and guards who were at the security checkpoint at the time noticed the suspect running towards them with a knife in his hands,” Israeli police said in a statement, adding that the boy was shot dead by police forces.
Before the incident, the Israeli forces verbally harassed a female member of the boy’s family, making him get into the fray with them, witnesses said.
Also on Friday, Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian protesters in Kafr Qaddum village near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya, injuring seven people, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported.Click here for the full storyFrom PressTV

Israeli troops attack Palestinian protesters in West Bank, injure 7

Seven Palestinians have been wounded and dozens more suffered teargas inhalation as Israeli forces suppressed weekly Palestinian protests in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli troops opened fire on the Palestinian protesters in Kafr Qaddum village near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilya on Friday, injuring seven people, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported.
One protester was hit with live fire, medical sources said, adding that another one lost his eye due to being shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Residents of Kafr Qaddum hold weekly protest rallies to express their anger at the illegal Israeli settlements as well as the construction of a separation wall that snakes across the occupied West Bank, isolating large swathes of Palestinian territories.
Also on Friday, a number of Palestinian protesters in the West Bank village of Bilin suffered breathing problems after Israeli soldiers fired teargas to disperse them.Click here for the full storyFrom PressTV

Palestinians condemn Israeli ruling on al-Quds property

Palestinians have condemned an Israeli court approval of a controversial law that allows the Tel Aviv regime to confiscate Palestinian property in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
Mohannad Gebara, a lawyer representing Palestinians, criticized the ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court to approve the contested Absentee Property Law.
He the law is intended “to seize the property of Palestinian refugees… and to legalize the seizure of Palestinian assets.”
“The law determines that property in East [al-Quds] Jerusalem belonging to a Palestinian living in Hebron (al-Khalil) or Ramallah has to be seized by Israel if he was at the time of the Israeli occupation in Ramallah or Hebron or any other city or area of the West Bank,” he told a press conference on Thursday.
Gebara added that the Israeli regime “has also seized several plots of land and thousands of items, contrary to international law.”Click here for the full storyFrom The Times of Israel

UN: At least 550 already dead in Yemen conflict

Amnesty notes high number of civilian casualties, says airstrikes raise concerns over Saudi compliance with international law

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — With combatants fighting in neighborhoods and Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounding Iran-backed rebels from the sky, Yemen’s war is wreaking a particularly bloody toll among civilians: more than 550 have been killed in the past month, including 115 children, the UN said Friday.
Amnesty International said in a new report that some of the airstrikes it examined in the capital of Sanaa and four other cities raise “concerns about compliance with international law,” saying they appeared to have failed to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

The air campaign that began March 26 “has transformed many parts of Yemen into a dangerous place for civilians,” the report said. “Millions of people have been forced to live in a state of utter terror, afraid of being killed in their homes.” It said about 150,000 people have fled their homes the past month.
So far, relatively muted criticism from world leaders has been unable to force an end to the violence in the Arab world’s poorest country. More civilian areas were hit Friday by warplanes, including a stadium in the southern town of Zinjibar and a courthouse in the town of Lahj, witnesses said. Casualties were not immediately known.
Saudi Arabia leads a coalition of other Gulf countries, Egypt and Sudan, in the campaign against Iranian-allied Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, who have taken over much of Yemen.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida member with Jewish lineage

April 24, 2015 4:06pm
(JTA) — Adam Yahiya Gadahn, one of the two American al-Qaida members killed in the U.S. drone strikes disclosed Thursday by the White House, was himself of Jewish ancestry.
Gadahn, 36, who also was known as Azzam al-Amriki, was born Adam Pearlman in Oregon. His paternal grandfather was Jewish, according to a 2009 al-Qaida video in which he appeared. Gadahn was raised as a Christian and converted to Islam in 1995.
“Your speaker has Jews in his ancestry, the last of whom was his grandfather,” he says in the 2009 video. He notes that his grandfather was “a zealous supporter of the usurper entity ” — Israel — “and a prominent member of a number of Zionist hate organizations.”
Gadahn appeared in several al-Qaida videos between 2004 and his death, according to the Times of Israel. He acted as a translator and media coordinator for the terrorist group. According to Reuters, Gadahn was a “highly important” member of al-Qaida’s media team.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

FBI chief apologizes for Holocaust comment on Poland

April 24, 2015 11:31am
(JTA) — FBI director James Comey apologized for publishing an article that suggested Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.
Comey’s apology, which came on Monday at the urging of the Polish foreign ministry, follows his op-ed about the Holocaust, which was published last week by the Washington Post.
“I regret linking Germany and Poland … because Poland was invaded and occupied by Germany,” Comey said in a letter to the Polish ambassador released by the Polish foreign ministry Thursday, according to Reuters.
Comey’s article read: “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places, didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.”Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Twitter praised for adopting stricter policy on hate speech

April 24, 2015 11:21am
(JTA) — Following aggressive lobbying and legal action by Jewish and non-Jewish anti-racism groups, Twitter toughened its policy on hate speech.
The new policy adopted Tuesday, extends Twitter’s prohibition on making threats beyond “direct, specific threats of violence against others” to include also ”threats of violence against others or promot(ing) violence against others,” Twitter’s head of product management Shreyas Doshi said in a blog post. The previous policy “was unduly narrow and limited our ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior,” Doshi wrote.
The Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based international watchdog on anti-Semitism and other forms of xenophobia, commended Twitter’s policy change, calling it an “important step in the realm of combating hate” on social media.
“We are pleased that Twitter has recognized the need to respond to hateful content more effectively than they have in the past,” said Christopher Wolf, who is ADL’s civil rights chair.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Family of victim of U.S. drone attack ‘disappointed’ in Washington

April 24, 2015 7:57am
(JTA) — The family of a Jewish Al-Qaeda hostage killed in a U.S. drone strike is disappointed in how Washington dealt with the situation, the hostage’s wife said in a statement.
Elaine Weinstein said Thursday the assistance her family received from the U.S. government was “inconsistent and disappointing.”
President Barack Obama said earlier in the day that he takes full responsibility for the January counterterrorism mission that inadvertently killed Warren Weinstein, an American Jew, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian.
“We hope that my husband’s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies in recent months will finally prompt the U.S. government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families,” she said.Click here for the full storyFrom Ynet News

AIPAC opposes push to toughen Iran nuclear bill

US pro-Israel lobby urges Republicans not to back amendments that could turn many Senate Democrats against the ‘Iran Nuclear Review Act’.
WASHINGTON – An influential pro-Israel lobbying group is pressuring US lawmakers not to support amendments to toughen a bill that lets Congress review a nuclear agreement with Iran, hoping to avoid a partisan battle that could doom the legislation.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been urging Republicans not to back amendments that might turn many Senate Democrats against the “Iran Nuclear Review Act,” or prompt Democratic President Barack Obama to renew his threat to veto the legislation. “Our priority is to make sure the bill gets passed with the strongest possible bipartisan majority so that Congress is guaranteed the opportunity to pass judgment on the final agreement,” an AIPAC source said.Click here for the full storyFrom Ynet News

Poland protests Mattel game that refers to ‘Nazi Poland’

Polish embassy says wording on disputed card is ‘completely inconsistent with the historical truth and detrimental to the good name of our country’.
The Polish government has demanded that toy producer Mattel recall a party game and correct a card that refers to “Nazi Poland,” officials said Friday.
Poles find such language offensive because Poland was never allied with Germany and was in fact subjected to a brutal occupation by Nazi Germany throughout World War II.Click here for the full story

April 24, 2015 4:06pm(JTA) — Adam Yahiya Gadahn, one of the two American al-Qaida members killed in the U.S. drone strikes disclosed Thursday by the White House, was himself of Jewish ancestry.Gadahn, 36, who also was known as Azzam al-Amriki, was born Adam Pearlman in Oregon. His paternal grandfather was Jewish, according to a 2009 al-Qaida video in which he appeared. Gadahn was raised as a Christian and converted to Islam in 1995.“Your speaker has Jews in his ancestry, the last of whom was his grandfather,” he says in the 2009 video. He notes that his grandfather was “a zealous supporter of the usurper entity ” — Israel — “and a prominent member of a number of Zionist hate organizations.”Gadahn appeared in several al-Qaida videos between 2004 and his death, according to the Times of Israel. He acted as a translator and media coordinator for the terrorist group. According to Reuters, Gadahn was a “highly important” member of al-Qaida’s media team.Click here for the full storyFrom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

President Obama accepts "full responsiblity" for killing two Jews in one day. Talk about a two-fer.